The recent heat wave was so strong that it shattered March weather records across Southern Arizona.
How many? More than 120 of them from March 18-25, the National Weather Service in Tucson says.
Of those, 29 monthly all-time heat records for March were set across 21 Southern Arizona locations over the eight-day stretch, the weather service said.
While Tucson International Airport is where official weather records are kept, the 21 locations where heat records fell have at least 20 years of historical data on record, the weather service said.
The heatwave was caused by a "very strong high pressure ridge that formed over us," Kevin Strongman, a meteorologist with the weather service here said Thursday. Such a weather pattern typically is seen here around June and July, he said.
People are also reading…
Stacey Hadlock, right, and Hannah Doran, both nursing students at Northern Arizona University, talk with a resident Friday about the dangers of extreme heat during a Community Heat Awareness Canvassing Event. The city joined with the Pima County Health Department and the American Red Cross to visit people living in high-risk zip codes to share lifesaving heat-safety information.
"But this came out early, right out of the gun, right when technically spring kind of 'started' for the year," Strongman said. "That allows the atmosphere to stand and collect more of that heat, and so we just had that large amount of heat across the whole area. So, all across the western United States, that ridge had formed, and it was definitely out of the ordinary and very strong compared to previous Marches on-record."
On March 23 and March 24, 18 daily heat records set and one monthly-all time heat record broken in areas across Southern Arizona. The Tucson International Airport had back-to-back 96-degree days. Two triple-digit highs were recorded on Monday: 101 degrees at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, and 100 at Catalina State Park.
The 98-degree-high set on March 23 in San Simon was the hottest March day ever recorded there, according to weather service data.
The three-day span from March 20-22 had eight monthly all-time heat records broken each day. The hottest temperatures reached on March 20: 103 degrees at Catalina State Park; 102 at both the desert museum and at Anvil Ranch, near Three Points, the weather service said.
Twenty-nine all-time monthly temperature records and over 99 daily heat records were recorded during the eight-day heatwave that settled over the region beginning on March 17, the National Weather Service in Tucson says.
Anvil Ranch recorded 102-degree highs on three consecutive days, from March 19 through March 21, according to the weather service.
The airport reached 102 on March 21, the highest March temperature ever recorded there. It was the third triple-digit day in a four-day span last week. Strongman, on Thursday, said the city's first triple-digit day isn't usually recorded until mid-to-late April. But it happened this year on March 19, when it reached 101 at the airport.
The previous earliest triple-digit day at the airport: April 11, 2025.
On Wednesday, Tucson's streak of tying or breaking high temperature records ended at seven days, the weather service here said in a social media post. The record high for any March 25 is 96 degrees and the high Thursday was 95.
"We've been running 15 to 20, to maybe close to 30 degrees above normal, what we're supposed to see," Strongman said. "We're supposed to be in like, the 70s, getting close to 80s at this point. So seeing the 90s, 100s, that's something, like it's early summer."
Tucson's official weather records date back to 1895.
The highest single temperature recorded during the eight-day heatwave was 106 degrees, reached on March 19 at Picacho Peak.
Overall, triple-digit highs were recorded 29 different times across the region, according to weather service data.
The Nogales airport's data is distinct, as it saw daily heat records set every day across the eight-day period. Over that period, the lowest high temperature recorded at the Nogales airport was on March 17, when an 88-degree-high was recorded. Back-to-back days of 98 on March 20 and March 21 set the monthly all-time high, the weather service said.
For Tucson, the weather outlook until April still has temperatures leaning towards above-normal readings, continuing on "to at least April, May, and June at this point," Strongman said.
There may be some respite from the heat this weekend and, possibly, early next week, Strongman said. Currently, the weather service here is giving a 20% to 40% chance of very light showers across the region Saturday night into Sunday morning, although the amount of rain is low, only up to a quarter-inch in some areas if they're lucky, he said.
Although there may not be a lot, or any, rain, this weekend, the weather system does have the potential to bring some dry thunderstorms, Strongman said, which could knock temperatures down a few degrees into the upper 80s.
Then, next week, the weather service is tracking a system "coming through early-to-mid week to bring some more chances of some showers" and lower temperatures, Strongman said. But those chances for rain are currently about 25%, he said.
